Tide Pods are delicious

Benjamin Miller

Now I am sure that you have heard about the excitingly dangerous new trend that has taken both the internet and the real world by storm — the Tide Pod Challenge. This challenge is simple. It involves locating a Tide Pod, a small packet of ultra-condensed laundry detergent, and eating it. Although Tide has recently partnered with Rob Gronkowski to raise awareness of the dangers of digesting these mysterious pods, I am here to provide a hot take that everyone should take to heart. I am here to play devil’s advocate to Tide’s argument. I am here to proclaim that Tide Pods are delicious and everyone should be munching on this snack daily.

Like most great things, the Tide Pod Challenge began on that intellectual mecca we all know and love, Twitter. It began with a few tweets here and there about the primal urge in all of us to eat the “forbidden fruit” that is the Tide Pod. Ultimately, this joke spiraled downward in a never-ending cycle of despair until it reached even the headquarters of Tide itself. Of course, it does not help that these scrumptious snacks actually do look incredibly edible; so much so that there has been an epidemic of young children attempting to eat them. However, it should be noted that these juicy delights are not for kids. They are for adults.

If anyone attempts to try and tell you that Tide Pods should not be eaten, you should retort with some of these incredibly true (and not at all fictional) scientific facts. For example, did you know that approximately 97.3 percent of people who eat Tide Pods say they would eat them again if presented the chance? The number would be incredibly higher if the remaining 2.7 percent did not have to go to the hospital after ingesting the concentrated detergent packets, but that is besides the point. In the 2008 Summer Olympics, swimmer Michael Phelps popped two pods before every race, fueling him to his historic eight gold medal performance. Slugger David Ortiz claimed he did the same before each game of the 2007 World Series, and actress Emma Stone stated that she ate a pod before every day of shooting on set of the smash hit “La La Land.” Whichever angle you choose to look at it, eating Tide Pods seems to have incredible benefits and advantages.

To all the haters of the Tide Pod Challenge, including the company Tide itself and the opinion section of this very paper, I have to say thank you. You have helped to keep so many people from making the decision to eat these pods, which is so incredibly generous of you. With so many people being deterred from eating them, I am left with so much more supply of the forbidden fruit to gobble down. So in conclusion, head to almost any store in the Charlottesville area, grab yourself a case of those tiny orbs of goodness and wolf them down.